Trump Attacked for Demanding Obama Birth Docs

Donald Trump’s calls this week for President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate prompted negative reactions from pundits who would like to turn the tables on Trump and say, “You’re fired.”

However, Trump’s comments, made most recently in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, also garnered support from those who wonder why Obama has not supplied documentation of where he was born.

Trump rekindled the longtime controversy Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” when he said Obama was “probably” born in the United States, but he wants the president to prove it with a birth certificate.

As for the critics, Brian Lowry of Variety got personal. “More than anything, Trump looks like a buffoon — an egomaniac hopelessly addicted to the spotlight, floating the prospect of a presidential run to a gullible media to boost interest in himself and ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’" Lowry wrote on the magazine’s website.

“Moreover, he seems in complete denial about the fact that his NBC show crested some time ago. Seriously, 8 million viewers or so is ‘through the roof?’ Only if the ceiling is about three inches above your head.”

David Weigel of Slate magazine took up Trump’s challenge to show him a photo of Obama as a child. “I've seen 14-year-old,” Trump said. “I've seen 13-year-old. I haven't seen early pictures." Weigel’s column includes a photo of Obama as a child that appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 2008.

Trump also has told CNN: "If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him. If you're going to be president of the United States, it says very profoundly you have to be born in this country."

Weigel’s response: “There are school records and photos of the young Obama all over the Internet. This is the kind of thing that's easy to prove, if you are more interested in proving it than in protecting your bias.”

It’s not a matter of bias, Trump indicates, saying during an exclusive interview with Newsmax: “It’s a very simple situation. I’d just like to see his birth certificate.”

The real estate mogul/reality TV star told Newsmax, “I’m hearing all sorts of stories that his own family can’t agree which hospital he was born in and lots of other things, and I’m trying to find out where is the birth certificate. I have a birth certificate. Where is his birth certificate?

“If you’re born in this country, to the best of my knowledge, people have a birth certificate.”

And then Trump got into it with co-host Whoopi Goldberg. To break the tension, he told Goldberg that he loves her. "I love you too, Donald, but I think that’s the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages," Goldberg responded. "It’s not because he’s black, is it?"

"It has nothing to do with him being black," Trump replied.

"Because I've never heard any white president asked to be shown the birth certificate,” Goldberg said. When you become a president of the United States of America, you know that he's American. I'm sorry, that's B.S."

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a friend of Obama's parents in Hawaii who said he remembers when the future president was born, first vowed to produce an original copy of the president's birth certificate this year.

But he abandoned those efforts because it is against state law to release private documents, CNN quoted his spokeswoman as saying.

Until now, the president’s representatives have depended on a certification of live birth that reported his birthplace as Honolulu.

The certification of live birth is a summary of the birth certificate's details, but does not include information typically found in the full certificate, such as place of birth and attending physician.

Meanwhile, radio talk show superstar Rush Limbaugh defended Trump on the air Thursday.

“You and I have known all along that we're dealing with a man-child here who has, literally, no qualifications, no experience, and according to Donald Trump now, no birth certificate," Limbaugh said.

"Trump is performing a valuable service here. He is attempting to help Obama out of a jam. You can't say Trump is a kook right-wing birther. Trump realized the problem that Obama faces here with credibility. He's giving him a chance here to establish some credibility by producing the birth certificate.”

The media is "covering it up" and "papering it over," Limbaugh said. "Trump's not the kind of guy to comb over difficulties. If he's going to bring this up . . . you know that it's serious."

Editor’s Note: To read the story about Donald Trump’s interview with Newsmax, and to see the video — Click Here Now.

Donald Trump s calls this week for President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate prompted negative reactions from pundits who would like to turn the tables on Trump and say, You re fired.
However, Trump s comments, made most recently in an exclusive interview...